Trouble in Afghanistan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So how is the war in Afghanistan going? Not so well, says President Karzai:

President Hamid Karzai accused NATO and U.S.-led troops [yesterday] of carelessly killing scores of Afghan civilians and warned that the fight against resurgent Taliban militants could fail unless foreign forces show more restraint.

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such," Karzai said in an angry rebuke that drew a contrite acknowledgment from NATO that it must "do better."

In the past 10 days, more than 90 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery fire targeting Taliban insurgents, Karzai said. The mounting toll is sapping the authority of the Western-backed Afghan president, who has pleaded repeatedly with U.S. and NATO commanders to consult Afghan authorities during operations and show more restraint.

"Several times in the last year, the Afghan government tried to prevent civilian casualties, but our innocent people are becoming victims of careless operations of NATO and international forces," Karzai said at a news conference in his Kabul palace.

The casualties listed by Karzai bring the number of civilians killed in NATO or U.S.-led military operations this year to 211, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and foreign officials and witnesses.

That tops the 172 civilians killed in militant attacks.

Do better, as NATO suggested? -- yeah, there's a thought.

But what Karzai may not realize is that Afghan life is treated as if it's cheaper than, say, American life. How would Washington or London or Ottawa respond if American, British, or Canadian civilians were being killed so recklessly, and by their supposed friends? Angrily, one imagines. But so what if some Afghanis are killed in hot pursuit of the Taliban? Hardly any real attention is paid to what's going on in Afghanistan anyway, let alone to the plight of Afghani civilians. The war is either ignored entirely or deemed to be such a noble cause that it lies beyond reproach. Either way, who cares about whatever collateral damage there may be? A few civilians here, a few civilians there. Whatever.

That's not my view, of course. I find the matter-of-fact nonchalance in response to reports of civilian casualties, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere, hugely disturbing. It may be a cliché, but we would all do well to put ourselves in their shoes for a change.

Good for Karzai for pointing the finger, and wagging it aggressively, at those who claim to be waging a war of liberation -- a war to free Afghanistan from the clutches of those who would tyrannize over it and use it as a base for terrorism -- but who are, in the process of waging it, killing many of those they seek to liberate.